A Sort of Homecoming
by Lirillith
Summary: A reunion between Cleo and Pahn, about a year after the end of the first game.


Author's note: When I played the game, I assumed that Cleo and Pahn were a long-term couple, and I was extremely annoyed with the ending the game gave them. Evidently I was one of the few who saw it that way, but that's the background of this fic. 

A Sort of Homecoming

  


It was late, and I'd already cleaned up, locked up, finished for the day. I was curled up in the parlor with a book, listening to the rain on the roof. If I felt like being melodramatic, I would say that rain always reminded me of that night, when we had to run, the night Pahn betrayed the Young Master and the rest of us, but honestly, I'm twenty-nine years old. I've heard rain way too many times for it to always remind me of just one night. And I spent way too many years with Pahn for that to be my only thought of him. 

I won't deny I was thinking of him when I heard the knock at the door, though. I always think of him when I hear a knock at the door, if only for a second, but not because I expect his return. I may want it, but I don't expect it. After all, he'd said before he left it would be at least five years, and I'd accepted that. I trusted him, and it was important to him. 

It was after hours – we're more or less a museum, now – so as I opened the door, the words were already forming on my lips. "We're cl— Pahn!" He gave me that crooked grin, his hair dripping into his face, and I threw my arms around him despite the rain. 

I had to get him out of those wet clothes, of course. It's not my fault what that led to. It's just a very effective way of warming up a chilled traveler, that's all. Not to mention welcoming home a man you haven't seen in over a year. I'd been thinking about this very scenario, with variations, since about a couple of weeks after he left. Left to my own devices, I usually favored something more along the lines of – oh, how do they phrase it in the novels? Fevered passion? Something like that – but it didn't work out that way. It was slow, almost leisurely. We'd been together for years, but we were friends first, and that's what comes out in bed, even after a long separation. And that's nice too, even preferable to the other stuff. The honeymoon phase was fun, as I recall, but it gets better with time. Maybe other people have better luck, but in my experience and according to my friends, you have to be with a man for a while before he's comfortable with you cracking jokes in the middle of the act. 

After that, we just held each other for a while. I was actually drowsing when he started talking, though I don't think he'd realized. He never talked much, even to us, and especially not to strangers; it wouldn't surprise me if he went days or weeks, out there, without speaking. Telling me about the past year was probably more of a release for him than the other had been. 

He told me about his training journey, about the people he'd met. He talked about the food, of course, because he's Pahn. After a while he fell quiet, and I told him about taking care of things here. I told him about my worries, trying to find the proper balance between respect for Master Teo's memory and the Young Master's wishes and letting the public see the place. "Seems you're doing fine," he said, his only comment on the subject, and I almost glowed, because coming from Pahn, that really means something. I caught him up on politics in the area, gave him my review of Lepant's performance in office. We shared what we'd both heard of the fighting between Highland and Jowston; he had some oddly vivid details, which led me to believe his travels had taken him to that area, though of course I didn't ask. My information was more complete, but also more vague. 

I guess we both slept for a while, but I woke up first. We'd reflexively rolled into that spoon position – and incidentally, there has to be a better term for it than that – and I stayed still, not wanting to wake him. He came awake gradually, and I was absurdly happy to realize I could still tell just from the sound of his breathing. Stupid of me, really. Breathing has to be the same for just about anyone. 

He pulled on his pants and I pulled on his shirt – which hadn't been that wet at all – and we went downstairs for snacks and drinks. I've learned to cook, a little, living on my own, and he grunted something that might have been a compliment on the leftover soup I warmed up. I tried not to smile as much as I wanted to, but I wasn't very good at resisting it, and besides, he could tell I was happy. It wasn't long after midnight, so we went back up to bed afterwards. I did not once ask him if he was going to stay. 

He kissed me goodbye and left before dawn. 


End file.
